The present invention relates generally to ovens using moving air and/or steam to cook food and, more particularly, to a system and method for handling water in combination ovens.
Many ovens include the ability to cook food using steam. For example, combination ovens provide the ability to cook foods using steam, hot-air convection, or both steam and convection. This combination of convection heating with steam provides a system where food can be properly cooked significantly faster than with traditional ovens or even convection ovens alone. As a result, combination ovens have become a vital asset in commercial cooking environments that need to cook food quickly and, often, in large quantities.
Combination ovens employ a motor driven fan to circulate air within a cooking chamber past electrical heating elements or gas heat exchange tubes to perform the convection functionality. To produce steam within the cooking chamber, a pressurized water line injects water into the cooking chamber, for example onto a rotating cup at the center of the fan, near the heating elements to disperse and vaporize the water. A system of this type is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,188,045 issued Feb. 13, 2001, entitled: “Combination Oven With Three-Stage Water Atomizer”, assigned to the assignee of the present invention and hereby incorporated by reference. In this regard, combination ovens require access to both electricity and pressurized water supply lines, such as municipal water supply lines.
Internal plumbing within the combination oven receives pressurized water from the plumbing of the kitchen and delivers it into the cooking chamber of the combination oven. As such, the internal plumbing is subjected to at least a portion of the heat generated within the cooking chamber. While modem plumbing techniques are designed to withstand variations in temperatures, the internal plumbing of combination ovens must be able to tolerate a temperature range extending from room temperature to several hundred degrees Fahrenheit (F). Furthermore, the internal plumbing must be able to tolerate this entire temperature range simultaneously during cooking periods because the plumbing fixtures arranged to interface with the kitchen plumbing are surrounded by room temperature conditions, while plumbing fixtures extending into the cooking compartment are surrounded by several hundred degree steam.
As such, a substantial cost of producing a combination oven is incurred in creating an internal plumbing system that is suited to these operating conditions. For example, considerable engineering design and manufacturing expertise is utilized to create internal plumbing systems for combination ovens that have a minimal number of joints and seals because such interfaces are negatively impacted by wide temperature variations.
Additionally, when including or incorporating a combination oven into a kitchen, the cost of purchasing the combination oven as well as the cost of providing the resources necessary to operating the combination oven (i.e. electricity and pressurized water connections) must be considered. In some cases, the cost of these resources may significantly impact the decision to include a combination oven within a kitchen.
The cost and complexity of installing a combination oven is at least one reason that combination ovens have only been widely adopted in large commercial kitchens and have not gained significant adoption in smaller commercial kitchens and consumer or home kitchens. In particular, it is widely recognized that plumbing costs account for a substantial amount of kitchen building expenses. This is generally true in both new construction, but can be particularly true when remodeling. As such, the decision to incorporate a combination oven into a kitchen, particularly a previously completed kitchen, may be relatively costly and outside of the budget for small commercial and/or residential kitchens.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to have a system and method to reduce the costs associated with ovens employing steam and, in particular, plumbing costs associated with such ovens. More specifically, it would be desirable to have a system and method for reducing the manufacturing costs associated with internal plumbing systems of ovens employing steam as well as for reducing the installation plumbing costs associated with incorporating such an oven into a kitchen.